Andrew Cogan

Andrew Cogan was the first Agent of the British East India Company to rule Madras. He was the Chief of Masulipatnam factory when the purchase of Madras from the Raja of Chandragiri was made. He was made the chief negotiator to purchase the strip of land now known as Madras from the Raja of Chandragiri.

Purchase of Madras

The British East India Company was established in England by a group of English merchants in the year 1600. Soon after the establishment, Englishmen William Hawkins and Sir Thomas Roe journeyed to India with the aim of concluding a trade agreement with the Mughal Emperor.

Their overtures to the Mughal Emperor successful, the English purchased Surat, in the west coast of India, in 1612 and built a factory there. However, they greatly desired a factory along the east coast of India and with this goal in mind, they selected a site near Pulicat, 25 miles north of Madras. However, the Dutch were in control of the area and were not desirous of rubbing shoulders with the English, who were their bitter enemies. They then attempted to settle at Peddapalli or Nizamapatnam. However, the climate of this place wasn't suitable for the English settlers.

The British East India Company then chose Masulipatnam, but soon abandoned the new settlement for a place known as Durgarazpatnam or Armagon about 35-miles north of Pulicat. But the place was miserable and trade did not prosper. It was at this juncture when the English settlers were having second thoughts about shifting to Masulipatnam that the deal was concluded with the Raja of Chandragiri for the purchase of Madras.

In 1637, Francis Day, a member of the Masulipatnam Council and Chief of the Armagon Factory, made a voyage of exploration down the Coromandel Coast as far as Pondicherry. At that time,the Coromandel Coast was ruled by the Raja of Chandragiri through a local chief or Nayak, Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak, who ruled the coast from Pulicat up to San Thome. He had his seat at Wandiwash and his brother, Ayyappa Nayak resided at Poonamallee.

It is widely presumed that Ayyappa Nayak was the one who made overtures to the British to choose the area comprising the modern-day Georgetown for settlement. The offer looked good, and Day consulted his superior, Andrew Cogan in Masulipatnam, to investigate the proposed site and examine trading possibilities. The results were favorable and Day secured a grant offering the village of Madraspatnam to the English for a period of two years. The Grant was dated August 1639, and after obtaining the approval of the Factory at Masulipatnam and the Presidency of Bantam (in Java), the settlement of Madraspatnam was begun.

The chief difficulty, as usual with the English in those days, was lack of money. At last, in February 1640, Day and Cogan accompanied by a few factors and writers, a garrison of about 25 European soldiers and a few other European artificers, besides a Hindu powder-maker by name Naga Battan, proceeded to Madras and started the English factory. They reached Madraspatnam on the 20th of February; and this date is important because it marks the first actual settlement of the English at the place.[1]

Construction of Fort St George

Day and Cogan were jointly responsible for the construction of Fort St George.The building of the Factory House was taken up on March 1st, 1640. A portion of the structure was presumably completed by St. George's Day (23rd April) of that year and the name Fort St. George was consequently given to the Fort.

The bastions were first built and erection of the curtain walls connecting them proceeded more slowly as funds permitted. The whole Fort took fourteen years to construct and was finished only in 1653. It measured about 100 yards by north to south and by 80 yards east to west. On its northern and southern sides buildings and streets sprang up and constituted what came to be known later as the White Town.

Indian merchants and artificers were attracted to the settlement and encouraged to build houses therein under a promise of exemptions from import taxes for a period of thirty years. It is said that within the first year of the life of the settlement, there arose some seventy to eighty substantial houses to the north and south of the Fort while in the village of Madraspatnam nearly four hundred families of weavers had come to settle permanently.

Cogan's Agency

Soon after the construction of Fort St George had begun, charges of private trade were brought against Francis Day and he left in 1641 for England.During his absence,Cogan was made the Agent of Madras and he remained in the post for more than three years during which he strengthened the fortifications and strived to make the town prosperous.But,he was charged with extravagant expenditure on the fortifications as a consequence of which he resgined his post and sailed to England in disgust.Day assumed the Agency of Madras and served as Agent for a short time.

It is brutal irony that neither Cogan nor Day were remembered in Madras whose foundations they helped to lay.

External links

• History of Madras